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U.S congress debating of consistent reports are the NPA mouthpieces planted by themselves to run propaganda against India. Surya was like the WMD's of Iraq. They tried all tricks to do whatever to stop us from being a space and missile power. When we make the next ICBM that goes 12000 kms, it need to be named NN-12000 (Nambi Narayanan-12000) in honor of the scientist and also remind the U.S about the treacherous ways they adopted to stop India's space and technological advance.

ramana wrote:When range is increased by reducing weight if the payload the accelerations increase. This makes the entire vehicle design subject to new loads and environments. And higher accelerations could lead to structural changes.Rocket science, not art.

will composite casings help in this case or they only help to reduce the mass?

Rockets are systems and need be designed & engineered as a system.

Elemental (Component) refinement is first step of evaluating first order approximation possibilities. Based on requirements, after picking up candidate alternatives one does multiple iterations of system design, before picking up best option and then do engineering development process.

The reduced payload requires perticular attention to payload subsystem sustaining very high peak acceleration by solidfuelled second stage at burnout time.

Those figures are closely guarded numbers that potential challanger agencies would die to know.

It started at noon on Thursday when a press statement from an Indian public relations firm dropped into the inboxes of defence correspondents (including Livefist’s) announcing that the Indian Army had just successfully practice-fired a pair of recently acquired Rafael Spike LR anti-tank missile.

....

It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the press release is from or on behalf of the Rafael-Kalyani partnership. What wasn’t absent in the statement was a pair of paragraphs nobody quite expected to see — a seemingly direct swipe at the DRDO’s in-development anti-tank missile. It took the DRDO hours to react, but the operative part of the PR statement that alarmed the Indian missile team is likely to have been: ‘With the confidence in the Spike missile established, the Indian Army may need to revisit their plans for 3rd Gen missiles. Both the DRDO ATGM programme, as well as the invitation to Indian industry to develop a 3rd Gen missile will need a rethink, as having a 4th Gen missile will put the plan for development of a 3rd Gen missile questionable.’

The DRDO responded earlier today on Twitter:

The Indian Army began receiving small numbers of the Rafael Spike LR missile in October after a contract was signed on emergency provisions amidst escalating tensions with Pakistan in 2018. The missiles, currently being practice-fired at the Army’s Infantry School in central India, will be deployed with infantry units on the border with Pakistan. The contract was a fraction of what Rafael has been working to supply to India for years, the effort beset with ups and downs. it didn’t help that Rafael remained on the Indian MoD’s restricted list for a time, before being taken off in April last year. But Rafael’s misgivings specifically with the DRDO on the anti-tank missile acquisition program aren’t difficult to understand.

After field trials and evaluations of the Spike over years by Indian teams, things hit a wall in November 2017 when the Indian MoD ended speculation on a significant contract and decided not to pursue a large purchase (8000 missiles/300 launchers) of the Spike. The reason — the DRDO had stepped into the conversation and assured both the MoD and and (an unwilling) Army that the proposed homegrown MPATGM would fulfill the requirement. Then Defence Minister, the late Manohar Parrikar agreed, and pulled the plug on the Spike. Less than a year later, the DRDO conducted the first test-firing of its man-portable ATGM (ATGM) in September 2018.

The thinly veiled PR statement on the Spike yesterday has has sent ripples across the Army, considering that direct swipes of this kind, while common in closed-door meetings with acquisition planners, have never been known to happen so publicly. Interestingly, the DRDO has several significant partnership linkages with Israel’s military industrial complex, including with Rafael, the LRSAM/Barak-8 program being the single largest joint weapons project by the two sides.

Apart from the recently delivered Spike LR, Israel’s Rafael has several systems in active Indian military service, including the SpyDer SAM system with the Indian Air Force, the Spice 2000 precision guided bombs used by the Indian Air Force to target Pakistan’s Balakot earlier this year and the Derby and Python air-to-air missiles.

The above warning also cannot be for K4 because this scheduled to be conducted at night time between 6:30pm and 9:30pm. During these times 6:30pm is quite dark in Eastern India.

This and Hemant Rout's confirmation go to show that Manu Pubby is not the most reliable when it comes to reporting on missile tests. He even claimed a no test of the K-4 on Dec. 17, 2017, when there was no notam for that day (there was one for Dec. 16, 2017 though). I guess none of these media reports are to be trusted, particularly if they are about the K-4. After all, unlike the land based missiles, K-4 tests appear to be only reported several days after they take place, if at all they are reported.

I hope the video (5 years old) shows old model SPIKE LR vs what's in production today, because the resolution really really sucks. It will be very hard for troops at range to make out targets amongst clutter, vegetation, terrain etc until and unless they have a very different heat profile.

A new generation of the original Spike-LR is in full-scale development and scheduled to be operational by the end of 2018. Spike-LR II (Israeli designation: Gil-2, גיל 2) has reduced weight to 12.7 kg (28 lb), increased range of 5.5 km (3.4 mi) at ground level and 10 km (6.2 mi) from helicopters using an RF data-link, warhead options of tandem HEAT with 30% increased armor penetration or a multipurpose blast warhead with selectable impact or penetration detonation fusing, a new seeker that includes an uncooled IR sensor with a smart target tracker with artificial intelligence features, the ability to fire on grid target coordinates using an inertial measurement unit for third party-target allocation, and is compatible with legacy launchers. The missile is designed with a counter-active protection system (CAPS) capability, being able to hit targets at higher impact angles of up to 70 degrees.[20][21] First ordered by the IDF in October 2017.[22]

Nags seeker is cooled. MPATGM unknown.

In 2008, the SPIKE failed desert trials (important to note, as versus current deployment), also 11 years back, bound to have been upgraded.Original seeker had same issue as Nags coupled with worse software! Rushed into service.https://maps.southfront.org/field-exper ... gm-system/

Our large stocks of Milan and Konkurs don't need any replacing for now as we ordered a very large number of them 3-4 years back. 3rd gen anti tank missiles are not cost effective and will remain silver bullets compared to Milan and Konkurs.

Spike LR is in the same category as MPATGM (when you compare the weight etc.), The French MMP and new Javelin missiles also have claimed max ranges of 4-5km+.BTW there is a new version of the Spike LR (don't know if we boughy this one or the old one): https://armyrecognition.com/weapons_def ... 05173.html

There is confusion about Spike missile weights - I think the confusion is by design. The Spike LR-II (latest version with a 5Km+ range) is said to have a weight of 12.5 Kg. I am positive that the weight they are talking about is the missile weight, not the weight of the system. The weight of Spike LR is 45 Kgs (tripod, launcher etc).

Some DDM douche (funded by Rafael) is going to say "Spike is 12.5 Kgs and can hit 5 Km away. DRDO's MANPATGM is 14.5 Kgs but only hits 2 Km away"

The test of the K4 submarine launched nuclear capable missile was scheduled to take place from the eastern coast as ET had reported but the window is likely to be used for an Agni series missile firing.

How convenient. I think he is bluffing.I had posted few days back here about the impending Agni test. It was always a Agni Test. Manu Pubby speculated it to be K4 test and when he was caught lying he so conveniently made it back to Agni test and theryby giving fodders to doubting Thomas such as Narang et al for another postponement and something wrong with our SLBM program.

It started at noon on Thursday when a press statement from an Indian public relations firm dropped into the inboxes of defence correspondents (including Livefist’s) announcing that the Indian Army had just successfully practice-fired a pair of recently acquired Rafael Spike LR anti-tank missile.

....

It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the press release is from or on behalf of the Rafael-Kalyani partnership. What wasn’t absent in the statement was a pair of paragraphs nobody quite expected to see — a seemingly direct swipe at the DRDO’s in-development anti-tank missile. It took the DRDO hours to react, but the operative part of the PR statement that alarmed the Indian missile team is likely to have been: ‘With the confidence in the Spike missile established, the Indian Army may need to revisit their plans for 3rd Gen missiles. Both the DRDO ATGM programme, as well as the invitation to Indian industry to develop a 3rd Gen missile will need a rethink, as having a 4th Gen missile will put the plan for development of a 3rd Gen missile questionable.’

The DRDO responded earlier today on Twitter:

The Indian Army began receiving small numbers of the Rafael Spike LR missile in October after a contract was signed on emergency provisions amidst escalating tensions with Pakistan in 2018. The missiles, currently being practice-fired at the Army’s Infantry School in central India, will be deployed with infantry units on the border with Pakistan. The contract was a fraction of what Rafael has been working to supply to India for years, the effort beset with ups and downs. it didn’t help that Rafael remained on the Indian MoD’s restricted list for a time, before being taken off in April last year. But Rafael’s misgivings specifically with the DRDO on the anti-tank missile acquisition program aren’t difficult to understand.

After field trials and evaluations of the Spike over years by Indian teams, things hit a wall in November 2017 when the Indian MoD ended speculation on a significant contract and decided not to pursue a large purchase (8000 missiles/300 launchers) of the Spike. The reason — the DRDO had stepped into the conversation and assured both the MoD and and (an unwilling) Army that the proposed homegrown MPATGM would fulfill the requirement. Then Defence Minister, the late Manohar Parrikar agreed, and pulled the plug on the Spike. Less than a year later, the DRDO conducted the first test-firing of its man-portable ATGM (ATGM) in September 2018.

The thinly veiled PR statement on the Spike yesterday has has sent ripples across the Army, considering that direct swipes of this kind, while common in closed-door meetings with acquisition planners, have never been known to happen so publicly. Interestingly, the DRDO has several significant partnership linkages with Israel’s military industrial complex, including with Rafael, the LRSAM/Barak-8 program being the single largest joint weapons project by the two sides.

Apart from the recently delivered Spike LR, Israel’s Rafael has several systems in active Indian military service, including the SpyDer SAM system with the Indian Air Force, the Spice 2000 precision guided bombs used by the Indian Air Force to target Pakistan’s Balakot earlier this year and the Derby and Python air-to-air missiles.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

It took the DRDO hours to react, but the operative part of the PR statement that alarmed the Indian missile team is likely to have been: ‘With the confidence in the Spike missile established, the Indian Army may need to revisit their plans for 3rd Gen missiles. Both the DRDO ATGM programme, as well as the invitation to Indian industry to develop a 3rd Gen missile will need a rethink, as having a 4th Gen missile will put the plan for development of a 3rd Gen missile questionable.’

Have Rafael ever clarified what is 4th Gen they mean by?

Even the BDL 2nd gen Amogha launched much like Nag is also considered as 3rd gen...

@Dinesha: I think the speculation about the Nov 8 K-4 test being postponed due to the cyclone was fuelled on twitter by the likes of Vipin Narang and other NPAs. The fact that no new NOTAM for a SLBM test was issued within days (it is reasonable to expect a new window to be determined if a test was postponed for weather reasons only) probably indicates that the test most likely took place. Given the history with K-4 tests, a successful test kept under wraps is very much a possibility. After all, the only K-4 test whose outcome was revealed less than a week after it took place was the first one, which happened under the leaky UPA govt.

As for Manu Pubby, this last news item indicates that he is unreliable. Even his Dec. 17, 2017 no launch claim is unreliable, as I have pointed out earlier. He probably mixed up some tips from an unreliable sourse and the online speculation about the K-4 being postponed to jump to conclusions about the latest NOTAM and spin a story.

with respect to rafael's snipe at DRDO MPATGM program, please be assured that these can never be Rafael's own words. A company like rafael with so much interest in Indian defence procurement will never make these kinds of controversial statements. Mark my words there is a bigger play in works. Rafael is just being used as a Cat's paw. The words are coming from the mouths of our own b@stard import Dalals both military and civilian.

Defence procurement should never be based on what is the best. Rather it should be based on what we need. If my work is being very able done by Mahindra or Tata SUV, why should I order Land Rover or Prado for for 6-7 times the price.

Everywhere whether it is defence procurement or infrastructure development or jumpstarting the manufacturing sector, there are interest groups who are trying to derail whatever good that is happening in this country. These interest groups comprise of both the foreign sponsors and their Indian collaborators. They will stop at nothing to make sure that this country is always a sponge for foreign goods. And now they are really desperate as DRDO/DPSU's/private companies(VEM, KSSL, Tonbo, dynamatic technologies etc) are stepping up their game.

darshhan wrote:with respect to rafael's snipe at DRDO MPATGM program, please be assured that these can never be Rafael's own words. A company like rafael with so much interest in Indian defence procurement will never make these kinds of controversial statements. Mark my words there is a bigger play in works. Rafael is just being used as a Cat's paw. The words are coming from the mouths of our own b@stard import Dalals both military and civilian.

The english used in that Rafael PR release was cent-per-cent desi, written by some ex-service or ex-babu dude who is now working as their PR rep, or some desi type who was asked to come up with it. The weird mix of passive and active grammar, passive-aggressive speech is classic desi PR. Some idiot tried pulling a fast one.

Yes a good relationship manager in high profile mic would talk directly about additional no of aeroplanes needed for AWACS etc (multiple of 10/50). This company isn't even USA mic and got involved in a slugfest or something. Not mucho comprehendo methinks.

Vayu guys retweeted it verbatim. As if they wrote it. Afterwards, "it was a PR release".

Anyhow, I have dropped my subscription to them.

They have gone over to the dark side a long time back. Deliberately giving Prodyut's crazy anti-LCA screeds max airplay, tom-tomming the JF-17 on their official handle as some great thing ("oh we are so eagerly waiting to see it at blah-blah air show"), constant virtue signaling ("we only exist to do what the AF wants".. yeah sure, aren't you an aviation mag?).

Googling around reveals PS Chopra, was actually a rep for Dornier in India. Won't be surprised if they still are the reps for some other manufacturers, vendors, apart from merely publishing a mag. Why should a mag's family reps visit Gripen in Sweden and pontificate on how its the best choice for India? Arent journalists and aerospace mags supposed to be neutral? Second, what business do they then have to hold summits with ADA, IAF to talk about future of the LCA program?

The guy who wrote it, thought too much of himself and was thinking more orders are guaranteed. Many of these guys take GOI for granted. If DRDO, GOI launch an official protest, it will send the right message.

Not just that. Make sure that once MANPATGM comes on board, even if its only 70% of Spike, cancel all future Spike orders. Then reverse-engineer Spike and make MANPATGM 2, 3 versions better than spike. Then send Rafael a d***-pic.

Does anyone have a link to the bollywood style music video that the Israelis made where they are the muscular herro coming in to save defenceless herroin India with its weapons? I think it is time to make it "viral" again - the powers that be should be made to watch it every day and hang their heads in shame at the sh*t show this has become.

Prem Kumar wrote:Not just that. Make sure that once MANPATGM comes on board, even if its only 70% of Spike, cancel all future Spike orders. Then reverse-engineer Spike and make MANPATGM 2, 3 versions better than spike. Then send Rafael a d***-pic.

What the heck. That was one of the funniest posts I read in recent times.

Hemant Kumar Rout@TheHemantRoutBREAKING India conducts 1st night trial of nuclear capable long range ballistic #missile Agni-III from Kalam Island off Odisha coast. Developed by @DRDO_India the missile has been inducted in the armed forces and can hit targets more than 3000 km away. #Agni3

Another thought on why Manu pubby (I hate that s***) could be right - Under Indo pak treaty we are under obligation to tell them about impending missile test and also issue NOTAM. One type of missile test that is not covered under treaty is sea based missile launches (under water).Now if you wanted to test it secretly (and say you also want to issue NOTAM, just in case, does not have to be), the best cover is Agni xx/Prithvi xx test. Announce it, have the NOTAM issued and while you test these missiles, test Sagarika as well within that time period.

@Dinesha: Looks like speculation by people like Vipin Narang and speculation by journalists like Manu Pubby are feeding off one another. This time the NOTAM clearly indicated a land based test. Underwater missile tests are generally off Vizag. I do'nt know why we do'nt announce and publish pictures of successful tests of the K-4 when even North Korea puts out pictures of initial SLBM tests. The alternative is to do what China does: full silence/censorship before as well as after each such test. This halfway house where the media knows and announces K-4 tests with absolute silence thereafter is making room for unwanted speculation.